I wasn’t looking for it. It found me, and it wouldn’t leave me alone. Like a worm boring its way through an apple, a story idea dug itself into my brain. I’ve always been told that a writer is someone who writes. I’ve never understood what that meant until one day in April of 2018 when I felt compelled to get my computer and start typing.
To be honest, the thing that made a nest in my mind wasn’t an idea for a story as much as an opening scene that I could see unfolding before me. It was the beginning of a story, set in the United States Senate as the country we know and love comes to an end. I started writing and let the story take me along. The more I wrote, the more I grew to love the main characters, Jaime and Alexander, and the more I wanted to know how their story would end. So I kept writing. And the story grew. In fact, it grew awkwardly like a gangling teenager. That meant rewriting sections to bring it under control, which I did.
Finally, the story made it through the awkward teenage years. Pretty soon, I had a full-grown book, The New World. It had a beginning, middle, and end, and I was proud of it, like a parent whose proud his newborn has ten fingers and ten toes. I have two grown kids, and I won’t tell you that seeing my finished manuscript was like having a baby, but it was pretty cool. All along the way, my wife read each chapter as I would finish them or revise them, giving me needed words of encouragement and critique. So, just like raising our kids, The New World is very much a team effort.
I told you our kids are grown, but they’re more like mostly grown, right on the edge of moving out into the world on their own. As a parent, that moment is both rewarding and a little bit scary. Those are the same emotions I have as I get ready to launch The New World. But at the end of the day, it’s a good feeling. I hope you enjoy reading my debut novel as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sign up to follow my blog and you’ll be the first to know when it hits the shelves.
I am hard at work on the sequel, The Ten Thousand. I don’t have a projected publication date for it yet, but the Lord willing, it won’t be long, so stay tuned.
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